I think it's the most humane solution and I'm embarrassed that we don't already offer that loving alternative in our society. My sister has spent her entire career in health care and she calls hospitals "torture chambers for old people".

We have to strike a balance between what is best for the patient and family, and making sure we don't have relatives offing someone just to get their dough. Our current situation is the reverse. Even if a person signs a living will, relatives who raise a stink about the person going win, because the hospital fears a lawsuit.

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All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007<br />

What are your views on assisted suicide , is it ever right to help a person end there life due to an incurable illness ?

It is possible where I live, but contrary to popular beliefs, it is tightly regulated. It is a matter of 'value of life': what else is left if you are bound to lie in bed with terrible pains, nothing to live for and waiting to die? I'd say, let's be humain and if these people really want to go, let them go.

It is possible where I live, but contrary to popular beliefs, it is tightly regulated. It is a matter of 'value of life': what else is left if you are bound to lie in bed with terrible pains, nothing to live for and waiting to die? I'd say, let's be humain and if these people really want to go, let them go.

There as been a recent case in the UK media which as got me thinking about this subject .A mother and father are under police investigation in the UK after they took their paralyzed son to a Swiss clinic to end his life .He broke his neck in a Rugby game and after several failed suicide attempts , they decided as a family to go the Swiss clinic route , this guy was only 23. I can't imagine how difficult this decision must have been for the family to make , and now the police are involved.I agree harihead you need safe guards especially if there is money involved , but i can't see that it's wrong to help a loved one end there life if they are suffering .

is it ever right to help a person end there life due to an incurable illness ?

Yes.

It's a coincidence you bring this up, I'm going to a wake for the mother of one of my friends this evening. She was just 55 and she had incurable cancer. Her life was ended a few days ago by a doctor with a shot of morphine, by her own request...

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BlueMeanie

Under the right circumstances I'm not against it. My ex-wife was a leukemia nurse, and the tales of terminally ill cancer patients dying very painfully, bleeding from every orifice, in front of their family, is enough to convince me.

DaveRam, there`s also been another case in Britain concerning a girl, 11 years old, who wants to die at home instead of undergoing treatment at hospital, which is unlikely to help her anyway. Thus she will have to spend the last months of her life with nurses, having the terrible therapy and discomforts. The girl has voted for home life, but the case, as far as I remember, has been taken to court. The family has accepted her choice. The girl says that she`s been living the last 8 years in hospitals, on drugs, injections and other painful things, and now she has made her decision.

Very well put, Bobber. My thoughts that is I'm NEVER going to be curied and continue to die a horrible, painful, slow death, it is all in a humane belief I believe, to help that person to end it. I would want someone to help me if I were in the "dying's shoes"........just my thoughts.............

Joost, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend's mother. It really sounds like it was the better thing to do.

As Blue Meanie says, the nurses will tell you more stories than you want to know about why death with dignity is needed. I find it encouraging that these seems to be the prevailing view.

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All you've got to do is choose love. That's how I live it now. I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden. I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007<br />

These people who are suffering in hospitals as described above - it would be rare in the States (and illegal) for them to be in that situation against their will. In other words, patients have the right to say enough is enough, and then care is shifted to comfort. Hospices are wonderful things, and seem to be becoming more and more used.

Just saying, as some of the posts above could be misunderstood as saying that patients are tied down and tortured with chemotherapy etc. against their will. It's all very voluntary, at least to the degree that doctors and hospitals aren't in charge. Now, family and loved one dynamics are a different story ...

Although it's a horribly painful decision to make, I can see the benefits of euthanasia/assisted suicide. I used to work as a caregiver for a 92 year old man who was ill, weak, lonely, and sometimes totally physically dependent. He got through life day by day, but I think he was basically waiting to die. Working for him forever changed my thoughts about what it's like to be very old and/or ill. It's not a happy life and I can't blame these people for not wanting to live anymore. :-/